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Sleep paralysis can actually occur in any one of us, especially if we’re sleep deprived enough. I had the experience of sleep paralysis once in my life, and it was very frightening and I’ll never forget it. I was a medical resident and I was on call and I was on a 36 hour shifts. And I didn’t get much sleep that night, but there was a lull in activity and I was able to go back to the call room and lie down within a few moments. I was asleep and within a few minutes, my pager went off, but I’d already fallen into a dream, which is very unusual. And as the pager went off, I could certainly hear it and I reached to get it, but I was stuck. I was unable to move my own self. A few moments went by and the messages from my brain to my muscles occurred properly and I was able to move again. But sleep paralysis is something that’s very common in narcoleptics and less common in the rest of us. There are a few people who get this on a regular basis and it can actually run in families. That’s called isolated recurring sleep paralysis, but it could happen to any of us if we’re sleep deprived enough.
